ENG524 Midterm Solved Papers

ENG524

ABSTRACT This comprehensive collection of notes is accurately crafted to empower students to excel academically, ensuring they achieve a minimum of 80% marks in their examinations. The content is organized with clarity and precision, focusing on key concepts, critical analyses, and practical applications tailored to the syllabus. These notes serve as a reliable resource for both thorough preparation and last-minute revision. Designed to inspire confidence and mastery, this guide is an essential tool for students striving for academic excellence.

Maha Malik CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Updated on 12-18

Q. Second Mode of Communication

The second mode of communication refers to written communication, while the first mode is spoken communication. Written communication includes texts such as books, articles, emails, reports, and social media posts. It is usually planned, structured, and permanent, unlike spoken communication which is spontaneous and temporary.

Q. Pragma-Dialectics (Short Note)

Pragma-dialectics is an approach to argumentation analysis developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst. It studies how people use language to resolve differences of opinion through reasonable discussion. The focus is on identifying fallacies, argument structures, and whether arguments follow the rules of critical discussion.

Q. Discursive Strategy (Applied)

A discursive strategy refers to how language is used deliberately to achieve a social or ideological goal. For example, calling migrants “illegal” instead of “undocumented” is a discursive strategy that shapes public perception negatively. Thus, discursive strategies connect language choices with power, ideology, and intention.

Q. Textual Knowledge vs Primarily Knowledge-Related Critique

Textual (or discourse-immanent) critique focuses on contradictions, gaps, presuppositions, and inconsistencies

within · the · text

itself. Primarily knowledge-related critique examines whether the text misrepresents facts, history, or social reality. In exams, this contrast shows how CDA evaluates both internal text structure and external knowledge claims.

Q. Interpretation Stage (Standalone Explanation)

The interpretation stage in Fairclough’s 3D model explains how readers or listeners process and understand a text. It focuses on the relationship between the text and its production and consumption, including cognition, intertextuality, and context. Here, discourse is treated as a discursive practice, not just language.

Q. Contextual Factors in CDA

Contextual factors in CDA include:

Social and institutional setting Power relations Ideology Historical background Participants’ roles and identities

These factors influence how discourse is produced, interpreted, and understood. CDA treats context as dynamic and socially constructed.

Q. Halliday & Webster: Textual Elements (Long Answer)

Halliday and Webster argue that textual meaning organizes language into a coherent and meaningful whole. Textual elements include theme–rheme structure, cohesion, information flow, and text organization. These elements help speakers and writers connect ideas logically and guide readers in interpreting meaning within context.

Q. Bartlett’s Research

Bartlett’s research focused on memory and reconstruction, showing that people do not recall texts exactly as they are but reshape them according to cultural knowledge and beliefs. In discourse studies, his work highlights how meaning is influenced by social and cultural schemas, not just language.

Q. Five Types to Select Text from a Corpus

Five common ways to select texts from a corpus are:

1. Genre-based selection
2. Topic-based selection
3. Time-based (diachronic) selection
4. Register-based selection
5. Purpose-based selection

These help ensure that corpus data is relevant and representative.

Q. Macgilchrist’s Strategies

Macgilchrist identified counter-discursive strategies such as:

Parody Logical inversion Complexification Partial reframing Radical reframing

These strategies challenge dominant discourses by re-presenting social reality differently.